And your mom. She used to be SO proud. Now she says things like: "Are you workingon anything new these days?"

12.

Fret that she'll die before you publish another book.

13.

Fret that you will die before you publish another book.

14.

Or if you do (write another book, not die) you'll sell so few copies that it will go O.P. in about twenty minutes and you'll have to buy up all the remainders.

15.

And they'll sit in unopened boxes, stacked in a damp corner of your garage, for the next 25 years, allowing brazen, burly rats the opportunity to gnaw their way through the cardboard and into the books' yellowing pages, where they (the rats, not the pages) will make nests for their disease-carrying, wormy-white babies between the lines of your precious but hackneyed prose.

And schools, libraries, bookstores, parent groups, etc., will cease to invite you to

speak at their events.

18.

Causing your income to dry up.

19.

And what little income you DO make, will go toward
feeding the42 cats that nowinhabit your house
because you: a.) havebecome
a crazy cat lady who goes out inpublic wearingfeline pajamas and curlers inyour hair; and b.) desperately needcatsto
hunt the rats

that are spreading The Black Death in your garage - and beyond.

20.

Snap out of it! Start over. Just write one page. One paragraph. One sentence.

You can do that, can’t you? Just. One. Sentence.

21.

But what if that sentence
doesn’t hook the reader? What if it
doesn’t wow ‘em?

What ifit isn’t
P.E.R.F.E.C.T.?

22.

Maybe you should change
that adjective. And this verb here. Yes, that's better. Okay,

now write the second sentence.

23.

Read both sentences out loud.
To the cat.

24.

Think: That second
sentence is even worse than the first sentence!

25.

Stare at the computer
screen. Be unable to write a third sentence until you getthe first

two Just. Right.

26.

Revise vigorously.

27.

Reread and revise again.

28.

Grow sleepy.

29.

And bored.

30.

Hungry.

31.

Check your email.

32.

Check your Facebook status.

33.

And your sales figures on Amazon.

34.

Sonofahamster! Sales have
plummeted in the last ten minutes! You’d
better get

busy writing that new book and selling it ASAP, otherwise everyone
in the world will

forget you’re a writer.

35.

But first, fetch a snack.

36.

Return to your desk. Discover the cat has confiscated your chair.

37.

Print out a copy of those
first two sentences.

38.

Take the copy and your notebook toa different location.

39.

Perhaps the couch. What
with the cat and the I.C., that desk chair was way too crowded,

This is the gift and the curse of a storyteller! I'm good a creating fiction, but some of it is self-defeating and self-destructive. Fortunately, I have a sense of humor. Making fun of my anxieties is a way to diminish their power. :)

DISCLAIMER

The authors of Project Mayhem do their best to provide accurate, witty, and sometimes manic information pertaining to all things middle grade. Any resemblance to anybody else's manic, witty, and accurate information is purely serendipitous. However, the views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the other writers on this blog. Except, we all agree that reading Project Mayhem will brighten your day. Drop by mic.